Escape from the Hellish Bowels of the Big Shell
by lyung
Summary: What happens to Otacon when he attempts to rescue the Big Shell hostages. Rated PG for mild violence.


"Escape from the Hellish Bowels of the Big Shell"  
  
_Metal Gear Solid 2_ and its characters are property of Konami Computer Entertainment Japan, Inc. Through this original work, this author does not claim these rights. Warning: minor _MGS2_ spoilers ahead.  
  
  
  
Inside the elevator car of the Shell-1 core module at the Big Shell facility, Hal "Otacon" Emmerich was using the back of his jacket sleeve to wipe the tears from his face. In a few seconds, the humming motor of the car would stop, finishing the ascent to the B1 Level, where the hostages were still imprisoned in the banquet hall. He knew that before the doors open to that floor, he had to put aside the latest tragedy in his life and regain his composure if he was going to successfully lead these people to safety. Briefly, he wondered how seriously the hostages would take him with Emma's parrot perched as it was on his shoulder. "Arrh! Me name's the Good Pirate Otacon, and I'm here to rescue ye lot o' landlubbers!" he imagined himself saying in a gravelly voice. After feeling the car coming to a stop, he returned his eyeglasses to his face and watched the elevator doors part.  
  
Exiting the elevator into the B1 corridor, he rushed without trepidation to the entrance to the banquet hall, confident that the Gurlukovich soldiers who had been assigned to the floor were now below in Arsenal Gear. He stopped abruptly upon finding that the automatic door remained closed despite his proximity. Turning his attention to the adjacent retinal scanner, he reached into his jacket pocket and retrieved his multi-tool, a folding pair of pliers with various screwdriver bits and other implements stored in the handles. He quickly removed the screws from the four corners of a metal cover below the scanner. After exposing the innards of the security device, he began rewiring them, and a couple of minutes later, the door slid open.  
  
Standing on the top landing of the banquet hall staircase, he surveyed the room. The remaining thirty-some men and women of the Big Shell tour group all seemed to be alive, though still bound, blindfolded, gagged, and sitting on the floor. He hurried down the steps and knelt before the nearest hostage, an older man who flinched at the engineer's sudden presence. "It's okay. I'm not with the terrorists. I'm here to get all of you off of the Big Shell," Otacon explained while he sliced through the plastic ties around the person's wrists. His hands freed, the man began to remove his blindfold while his liberator continued, "This entire facility is going to sink in minutes, so I need you to help me free the rest of the hostages as fast as possible so that we can evacuate. There should be some knives at the banquet table that you can use to cut the others loose." When he received a nod of affirmation from the older man, he moved on to the next hostage and the next, freeing them and repeating the same information that he gave the first person.  
  
Eventually, he had worked his way up to a captive the northwest corner of the room when he heard the whooshing sound of a door opening. He spun his head in the direction of the noise, and saw someone dressed in a brown Gurlukovich BDU emerging from a lavatory.  
  
Muttering to himself about toilet paper, the soldier was so preoccupied that he was several footfalls away from the door before he noticed Otacon staring back at him in frozen shock. He pointed his AK-47 at him. "Hold it!" he ordered in an American accent. Stepping closer, he then realized that almost a third of the hostages had been freed and were assisting their comrades. "All of you, don't move!" he yelled while waving his assault rifle in a horizontal arc. "Hey! Where are the other soldiers?"  
  
"They're gone. E-everyone's evacuated to Arsenal Gear," answered Otacon. While one half of his brain was terrified, the other half was berating him for paying more attention to Meryl's backside than to Snake's instructions whenever the pair had their close quarters combat practice sessions.  
  
"Evacuated? When?"  
  
"T-they announced it about a half hour ago."  
  
The soldier rolled his eyes and, to nobody in particular, whined, "Aw, man, a half hour? Why didn't Yegor come in and tell me? He knew that I accidentally shot out the PA speaker in the can!" He then turned his attention back to Otacon and cocked an eyebrow. "Say, haven't I seen you somewhere before?"  
  
Slight puzzlement surfaced in Hal's frightened visage. "Uh, I don't know. Who are you?"  
  
For a few seconds, the soldier squinted at him in concentration, and then widened his eyes. "You're the Metal Gear REX guy from Shadow Moses!" Sounding pleased with himself, he added, "Well, I'll be damned!"  
  
"Um, I think you've got me confused with somebody else," Otacon suggested, hoping that anyone who might be interested in apprehending a member of Philanthropy was not within earshot.  
  
"I'm sure you're him!" the soldier asserted jovially. "I was there when you asked Sniper Wolf if you could feed the dogs!"  
  
"I'm sorry, but I don't know what you're talking about."  
  
"Oh, come on! I remember it like it was yesterday! You were making small talk with her about the dogs, and you had this goofy grin -"  
  
Without warning, a low rumbling noise emanated from the gut of the soldier. With a groan, he doubled over and clutched his abdomen with both arms, dropping his rifle in the process. Otacon shifted forward suddenly, causing Emma's parrot to take off from his shoulder. He then delivered a kick towards the stricken terrorist's head, smashing the tip of his running shoe into the bridge of his adversary's nose. While the soldier's head snapped back, the dog tag chain around his neck flew up and became caught around the rear of Otacon's shoe as the foot was being brought down. The weight of the leg pulling on the chain and his neck jerked his head forward, crashing it face-first into the rubber sole of the shoe. With both hands, the Gurlukovich man seized the foot pressed against his face and tried to wrestle it loose. Not realizing that he could lift it a couple of inches and allow his neck chain to slip off the shoe, he instead repeatedly pushed against it, forcing the back of the chain to dig deeper into the bottom of his balaclava.  
  
Meanwhile, the owner of that foot was hopping on his other leg and flailing his arms about, attempting to maintain his balance. Upon hearing the sound of another guttural attack and seeing the soldier begin to hunch over and reach for his stomach, he kicked himself off the floor and propelled himself backwards, causing his opponent to fall forward. Otacon landed on his rear and, with his other foot, started stamping the soldier's head. He yelled with a cracking voice, emphasizing each word with a blow, "Get! Off! My! Shoe!"  
  
On the strike coinciding with "shoe", the chain snapped, allowing the recipient of the kicks to drop to the floor. Instead of getting back up, the soldier slowly rolled onto his side and curled into a fetal position. "Ohhh…" he moaned in pain, although it was difficult to tell which was giving him grief, his head or his stomach. Emma's parrot landed by the crown of his head, pecked at it a couple of times, and squawked.  
  
A couple of minutes later, all of the hostages were freed and running up the staircase, their rescuer taking up the rear. Reaching the top landing, Otacon turned in the direction where the soldier had collapsed and stretched out an arm. "Hey, parrot!" he called, and whistled. Soon, a flapping mass of green feathers appeared and perched itself on his forearm. Just as he was about to continue his exit, he noticed something metallic and shiny clenched in the bird's beak. Easing it out, he identified it as a dog tag. "'Johnny Sasaki'," he read the inscription aloud, shrugged, and tossed the tag over his shoulder as he passed through the doorway.  
  
  
  
Author's Note: In _Metal Gear Solid 2_, a hidden reference to the previous game is Johnny Sasaki, the hapless Genome Soldier who was beaten up and stripped by Meryl Silverbergh, and who later spent half his time on the toilet instead of guarding Solid Snake. During the scene in _MGS2_ when the player is expected to use the directional microphone to listen in on Ocelot's and Solidus Snake's conversation, it is possible to target the lavatory in the northwest corner of the room, and hear Johnny's vocalized musings and his rebellious bowels. 


End file.
